B is for Big Box of Bounty - Civilian

I rather broke the rhythm with the last post, it should have come after a bauble post, of which there are still one or two in the queue, but, hey-ho, worse things happen at sea, much worse! Looking at the civilians from Chris Smith today, and there will be a follow-up!

Another contender for best in box, I found the A-suffixed marking first and thought I/Chris had found a group of sculpts missing from the Lik Be (LB) listings, but it looks unlikely, comparing all four. However, they are rather fun, and obviously, back in the day, a touristy thing, at a price which would have been well below the hand-carved wood, or poured resin alternatives, probably sold as a set in a window-box, but possibly separate too, and, were there a D or E suffix, more even - I hope this is a complete set?

I think of them as; 

414 - A private owner or ‘weekender’, motor not sail!
414 A -  A Trawlerman.
414 B - The ‘Old Salt', probably also the local  Pilot and/or Harbourmaster! 
414 C - A Russian or Eastern-European 'jobber’, or seaman for hire.

A nice set of modern, maybe even still current China police, we did some work on these a few years back, rather by accident, with much help from a series of shelfies from Brian in New York, and it's something I'll have to return to when everything is brought together, as there are many to formally ID, even if they are on the blog somewhere already.

But for a while we were making headway, with stuff from Dolgen, Greenbrier and Jaru et al., over there and Poundland, Pound World and 99p Stores etc., over here. Where a group of Western companies will carry the same set, and another group, another set, with other sets hanging in independent convenience stores, and people like HTI sourcing yet more sculpts from somewhere else!

As with the oft-mentioned (because both Brian and Theo have sent stuff for it) firefighter page, there will need to be a police page, a footballer page, and page on motor-race officials, spectators and mechanics, with better posts than so far on fishermen, divers, cricket &etc . . . all these things take time!

Likewise, these game-playing pieces! I don't know this lot (but they may be in the archive somewhere), I know the guys with suitcases, I know the people waiting for a bus, I know two or three sets of busts, and while several of them are police/espionage/crime related, and I think these three (of four?) will be of that ilk, I currently don't know!

Three polystyrene Blue-Box copies of Dinky mechanics, and one of the lesser sub-piracies in grey polyethylene, as an aside, I picked up three of the Marx construction worker copies, mentioned in passing in the Military plunder-post the other day, at Sandown park, so they are in the queue, and it's another example of a page that will need to be produced one day, all the road-work and construction figures!

We've either seen this guy before, or the matching motorcycle rider (possibly also from Chris), and I do now know who he is, he's The Lucky Toys, in a 3-inch scale they usually didn't touch, next to him is a marked Funrise figure, and a small novelty badge (a simple pen-clip slip-over), for which there is a drawer, somewhere!

Farming; the figures on either side (children?) may be connected, but their differences match their similarities in number - I think they ARE the same source. He looks as if he should be holding a sack, or a lamb?

 

The second figure is possibly Lemax, from the Christmas Village (enough items listed now, for a busy city!), becoming quite common over here now (it was a US thing), with two Garden Centres known to me stocking them, the squirrel has lost it's tail and looks like a gopher!

While the larger is another of, or from the same source of that multi-series, multiscale, multi-issuer range which was around in the 1990's, as die-cast vehicle and big-box play set accessories who will need a big post one day!

Seated figures include a Blue Box tractor driver, a couple of Tudor Rose (or copies - green and yellow chaps), a possible Thomas in blue (top right), a possible Blue Box copy of Marx dolls house figure (painted woman), a more modern driver and a couple of racing car drivers with some vintage.

A real mix here, with a Marty circus horse, Zoo Quest hunter (Ariel), HK copy railway figure (pink), two Slater's or similar O-gauge railway figures, the painted kid is marked (C) 98 & INRES if that means anything to anyone?

The chap with the charm loop, might be a European product mascot/premium, and one of the major members of the animal forums uses an identical one, as his sizer for animals and dinosaurs, so when I become more active on those than I have been so far, he will prove very useful indeed, but I don't know his origins?

Likewise, the chef, is probably a product/retailer mascot of some kind, he's on a plinth (poor photograph, sorry). The figure far-left could be Kinder, or similar and is a reduced-scale Playmobil clone, and the guy in blue overalls might be Supreme, but he looks too well detailed?

Firefighters, with a possible Pioneer or Realtoy (painted, sand base), two Matchbox (silver), and several others, far right is probably French, and from a die-cast (or aluminium?) fire appliance, and I think we've seen the brown one, bagged!

Many thanks as always to Chris for all these, and everything else he shares with us, I'll gather a few bits for a follow-up, and maybe get something out tonight.

E is for Eye Candy - Naval & Marines

This was shot back in November 2020, so five years ago, give or take the odd day and a leap-year! There's about the same again to be added to this, in the still being sorted pile, at the lip of the storage container, and we've added a couple of rack-toy assault-craft over that time, all seen here in various posts, I think, try 'Vessels' or 'Naval - Marines' in the tag list. But what can you spot?

 

Top left is all the larger 60mm'ish stuff from Marx, MPC, Auburn (polymer, not rubber) or Ideal (?) and so on, originals and re-issues, to their right is the Lone Star sample, with some PVC, Timpo-branded, Toyway reissues, while the more historically-uniformed Charbens are in the little bag.

 

In the box, top right, are the more modern (WWI/II'ish) Charbens with four of the ever more brittle Lone Star marines - fighting in No.1 Dress uniforms! I have added one or two I think, but they may be duplicates. Below them is a mixed tub of the smaller Marx and a few others; Reisler, hollow-cast &etc, which we saw in an early post on the subject. There's been a few hollow-cast additions too.

 

Sandwiched between those two tubs is a wooden, hand-carved, tourist chap, who we also saw here over a decade a go, but there are four, similar, and very interesting plastic versions about to hit the blog! To the left of the mixed tub is a newer one, since enlarged, but still not ready for the definitive post, with the Britains Naval gun, now 'guns', but not all versions yet, although we did have a look at them, in part, a while ago.

 

In the corner are the three Greek assault-boats, copied from Britains, which got a post, and then in the top-left quarter of the box, all the iconic novelty floating toys from Britains and Timpo. You can see the Greek crewmen under the US Assault craft . . . I've actually done an 'Assault River-Crossing', in a remarkably similar boat, but ours didn't have engines, so we had to fucking paddle, in the rain!

 

The final tub, outside the box, has all the European types, obvious are Cofalu/Cofalux swivel-heads and the Coma assault marines, but there's some other stuff, a couple of Atlantic, a Hong Kong or two, and, strangely, mu original Frog trio, who are RAF rocket-troops! They've since been moved, as the sample is up to about ten now!

 

You can add a largish sample of the Gem cadets, those Argentine rubber ones which came in a while ago, and more Atlantic, Lone Star and Reisler, along with some Starlux (not sure where they are?), but, there's actually quite a few to sort into this tub at some point, and more take-away tubs will be needed! Then there's all the ABC and other Hong Kong copies, from hollow-cast, taken from Britains, which we have looked at here, on more than one occasion, now.

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Modern Combat Types

Toy and Model soldiers; where it all started! Onwards and upwards as they say, with the next batch of donated figures from Chris Smith's last parcel, and we're into khaki military, but as I've added some sailors it's really 20th/21st Century!

 

Two Toy Story chaps flank the last Blue Box WWII figure I needed to complete an at-least-one-of-each sample of them, and it wasn't the usual 'I don't need this so you can have it' donation from his purchase sorting, it was a 'I have one you can have' from Chris's collection, so double thanks for this chap. I have quite a few, painted and unpainted, but they are all missing their mine-detector, which is too easy to pull-off, or be short-shot in the moulding-tool.

 

Not sure if I have the other two, but there were several sets over the years, and until I get them all together, I won't know!

I think these are Pilsen from Turkey, but the Solpa figures from Greece (next door) can also have the contouring on the base some of these have, and as Solpa also sourced capsule-toy robots and Hong Kong small-scale stuff, it may prove to be that Solpa were using Pilsen?

A mixture here, with a Galloob Micro-man, some HK chaps, a bubble-gum premium and what appears to be a homemade/home cast clone of a French plastic? The two HTI's (right) both have the base marks we looked at briefly a few years ago, but they are different marks, so when I get round to an HTI A-Z page, there will be a few of them to study!

These are second generation copies of New Ray, I think, I got quite excited about a couple of the poses a few years ago, following one of Chris's earlier parcels, but more have come in, overtime, and they are less exciting now, maybe, but there seem to be two tranches/sources, so there will be a full article one day!

Arguably common, but there are many, many variations of these mid-80's rack-toy clones of Airfix British paratroopers, with or without beret/helmet conversions (at the factory) and in dozens of sizes and many plastic colours, so always welcomed for the final sort-out!

Kit figures, two Aurora Russians on the left, and two early (1950's) 'box-scale' on the right, but the chap in the middle is new to me, a scale-up of the Nitto 1:76th German (which was a copy of the earliest Tamiya German set I think?), and in a 'German' blue-grey plastic? All five are glueable, brittle polystyrene.

Probably Kwong Shing  (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) figures, but these coloured ones are less common, and well worth adding to the stash for the final A-Z line-ups! Here, oxide red and grey, rather than the silver we've seen before, I think?

Still need set titles or a maker's marque for these Hong Kong sailors, originally thought to be Navy or Police, for a while, and in discussion with other collectors, the turning-up of the semaphore chap rather confirms the former at the expense of the latter, and probably from a 1980's big-box naval vessel or aircraft-carrier playset? they are around 18/20mm.

Y is for ♫♪♫♫ The Yanks Are Coming, The Yanks are Coming, the Drums Rum-Tumming Everywhere! ♫♪♪♪

Not the Confederates mind, the Yanks! "Over paid, over-sexed and over here!" went the saying in the early 1940's! And here we have some sailors on furlough from the Invasion Force gathering on the South Coast, who have decided to use the Summer Solstice for an impromptu barn-dance on Salisbury Plain!

Yes I know the shadows are all wrong thanks, and when I showed them elsewhere some fatuous little tick-turd (another of the men-with-two-names), said they were the wrong colour, well that's because they're phuqing toys, no, no; they're not even phuqing toys, they're phuqing novelty, phuqing cake decorations, you phuqing arse-bubble.

Possibly Wilton, but unmarked and of such poor finish/paint, you suspect they were probably issued by one of the lesser brands, such as Carousel or Gay-Gem, Unique or 'Stovers? having shot the above, I gave several away, so that shot can't be reproduced, or at least, not by me!

T is for Two - Contributions

We've had some pretty eclectic stuff here at Small Scale World in the last week or so haven't we! I'm sort of clearing the decks for other things which doesn't mean the other things won't get thrown on the back burner at some future point, but I mean well as I'm going-about it! Here's a couple of things of interest sent in by loyal readers in the last few months;

Theo van de Weerden picked this 150mm figurine up cheap-as-chips (I believe) in a mixed lot at a sort of car-boot sale a while back, and isn't she a cutie . . . no, no, she really is  . . . a 'Campus Cutie' from Marx and one of the ones I would imagine it's harder to find in perfect condition as that oar she's holding must be a candidate for damage? Nice find Theo, thanks for sharing!

While Brian Berke sent this as a follow-up to his own donation of HO/1:87-90th scale Pyro figures, and which I then forgot when I did publish a follow-up the other day . . . also from Brian (who didn't remind me these were in the queue, so it's easy to lose track of this stuff!),  it's a model Tug outfitted with the very figures we looked at the last two times! Thanks Brain and sorry I lost track of them!

F is for Follow-up - Pyro Sailors

By way of a follow-up to his own donation to the Blog, Brian Berke has sent the following to add to the post with the Pyro sailors from April gone . . .

The Pyro Schooner model kit came with colour-matched runners of the figures we previously saw as stand-alone marine-modelling accessories and - for a second - I thought "What a swizz, you had to buy two packs (of the seperates) to get all of them!", then I realised the kit has two duplicate runners!

However Brian further reports that the later iterations of the kit (Life Like and Lindberg 'Classics' boxings above) don't have the figures included, which is odd as Pyro being gone (for the moulds to move-on/change hands) you wouldn't be able to source the little set we saw last time, or not with assumed ease?

I guess it was a separate mould, which would make it a smallish, man portable tool, which may have been nicked at some point, damaged or lost? Anyway, whatever happened to the figure mould; many thanks to Brian for the follow-up!

J is for Jack Sparrow . . . et al!

I managed to add to the Zizzle collection again this year, but I have to admit I didn't try too hard or do too well, finding only two suitable lots, letting the better one go and buying the other a few weeks later, a couple of three months or so ago! Of the eight figures in the lot, four were duplicates/damaged, but the other four were new for ITLAPD!

I then photographed them when they arrived and a month or so later, having forgotten I'd photographed them, did so again!

Two more from 'last year's' Chinese crew, another of Davy Jones's slimy pals and - at last - captain Jack Sparrow himself. Now, here's the weird thing, I remember seeing all these in the shops at the time and thinking I bet the 54mm guys are loving these, but not buying them as I was still only a small scale collector.

Now, of course, I don't know how many there were! But I think it's about two or three sets of three or four figures per movie, for the last two, with an unknown number of the simpler-based ones which kicked-off the sample three or four years ago, from the first movie - and harder to find.

So if I manage to get a few more additions over the next year or two and only show them, we can look at them all together in a future post?

The whole purchase lot before the rejects were hived-off, Cap'n J is definitely between a rock and a hard place, running from the frying-pan and heading for the fire or . . . between the devil-fish and a deep blue grave!

Close ups of Mr Depp and the four rejects having a scrap, just because they were there, and won't be! And because this might have been a funnier post if things had been different, but it's just a case of finding my feet again and getting it posted without my little editor on the end of the bed.

H is for How They Come In - Brian

As the current closedown was spreading it's shadows and I decided to self-isolate (more than a week earlier than the PM considered it necessary!), I received a parcel from New York (the virus doesn't survive on absorbent surfaces - so please stop fucking-up the Metro dispenser by pulling one from underneath, you minority of ignoramuses!) and had managed to thank Brian just before I withdrew from society!

But still time to thank him publicly, for a nice sample of stuff from 'across the pond' and to mention that my thoughts are very-much with him and those close to him as New York faces the worst of the fall-out from Trump's arrogant grandstanding, ignorant dithering and crass, childlike stupidity.

More Homies (post already done), top-ups for two of the '100 thing' comic-ad' sets and firemen - large and small - for the forthcoming page, a nice sample of Hong Kong copies of Airfix 1:32nd scale paratroop piracies in 25mm, and in a purplish-blue polymer, which is new to me, along with a charming carded set from Pyro . . . of all people!

A set which is pretty self-explanatory if you know Pyro made a series of early ship kits and vessels some (most?) of which were box-scale, several of which (along with offerings from Aurora and Monogram) scaled-out at around 1:90, 1:96 or 1:100, explaining also the diminutive size, and generic sculpting of these chaps!

Indeed, the walking chap - once painted - would pass for scratch-built and I wonder how many I may have seen, on deck or dockside in the museums at Greenwich or Kensington? Captain, First Mate and four swabs . . . Brilliant! And mint as a minty-thing that's been grown in a pot of mint to be served with lamb . . . or julep!

Needless to say . . . like a rat up a drainpipe, like a moth to a lamp, like a fuckwit to a populist's rally, she was in the box in seconds, for keeps! Just how she likes it - about a quarter of the size that would be comfortable!